Final answer:
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was created to reduce competition for U.S. jobs, targeting Chinese laborers and reflecting widespread racial intolerance towards Asian immigrants. It was the first U.S. law to bar immigration based on ethnicity, contributing to discrimination against Asians.
Step-by-step explanation:
The main reason given for the creation of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was to reduce competition for U.S. jobs. This legislation was passed by Congress as a response to economic fears and pressure from American labor groups, particularly on the West Coast, who believed that Chinese laborers accepted lower wages and therefore threatened the livelihood of white American workers. Furthermore, this act marked a significant moment in U.S. history, as it was the first law to explicitly ban a group of people based on ethnicity from immigrating to the United States. The blatant racial prejudice and hostility it both reflected and intensified contributed to the widespread discrimination and mistreatment of Asian people already residing in America. It was also influenced by an atmosphere of racial intolerance and nativism that wrongly cast Chinese laborers as a threat to American cultural and economic life.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its subsequent extensions, including the Geary Act, exclusively targeted Chinese laborers, leading to a significant downturn in Chinese immigration and fueling discriminatory practices. This discrimination was legally sanctioned through multiple laws that affected not just the Chinese, but gradually extended to other Asian groups, cumulating in broader exclusionary immigration policies in the early twentieth century.